June 18, 2009

Cal Poly Concrete Canoe Places 3rd in the Nation

Cal Poly's Concrete Canoe team paddled to 1^st Place in both the Men's Endurance and Co-ed Sprint races, and capturing 3^rd Place overall place in the American Society of Civil Engineers' Annual National Concrete Canoe Competition held June 11-13.

During the three-day event, Cal Poly's 246-pound, 20-foot-long Vintage canoe also took 1^st in Final Product. The elegant canoe featured an elaborate mural created with acid stains and recessed colored slurried tiles depicting local San Luis Obispo wineries.

The canoe was designed and built by a team of 50 civil engineering students, who spent a total of 4600 hours on the project.

"The team did a fantastic job, besting our 2008 fourth place finish and bringing home a $1500 scholarship for 3^rd Place this year," said faculty advisor Dr. Gregg Fiegel. "The top three teams were only separated by fives points in the overall standings, making this the closest competition in recent memory."

First and second place went to UC Berkeley and École de technologie supérieure from Montreal, respectively.  

Commenting on the material specifications required in the competition, Kyle Marshall, civil engineering junior and team captain, commented, "The guidelines required maximum cement to cementitious materials ratio and incorporation of recycled aggregates--this focused our research on sustainability and implementation of new materials."

"Over the past three days, these outstanding civil engineering students have shown that technical skills combined with an innate sense of creativity can turn a seemingly impossible task into a reality," said ASCE president D. Wayne Klotz, P.E., D.WRE, F.ASCE. "With the innovative thinking we saw during the competition in Alabama, I can't wait to see what's to come from these students in the future as they begin their professional careers."

The races, both endurance and sprint combined, counted for only 25 percent of the teams' overall score. The remaining 75 percent was based equally on a technical design paper that highlighted the planning, development, testing and construction of the team's canoe; a formal oral presentation, in which the team had to detail their canoe's design, construction, racing ability and other innovative features, as well as defend their choices to the judges during a question and answer session; and the end product -- the final racing canoe and project display, which were scored on aesthetics and visual presentation.

For more information on the National Concrete Canoe Competition, including downloadable high-resolution photos, please visit http://www.concretecanoe.asce.org/.

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